Page 35 of Season of Naga: Volume 2
Her eyes widen comically, and I cannot help the low chuckle that escapes me.
"Well," she says, recovering quickly, "you've aged remarkably well."
"You admire what you see, human?" The question slips out before I can stop it, my tone more challenging than I intended. "A creature from your nightmares?"
Her cheeks flush a delicate pink, but she doesn't look away. "Not all nightmares are terrible to look at," she whispers, and something electric passes between us in the ancient chamber.
Chapter Eleven
SERIN
My heart pounds against my ribs as Lurok's frosty gaze holds mine, colorless like the still air before a tempest. The space between us feels charged, dangerous. The same danger I felt when I first saw him coiled beneath the table in the garden shed, wounded yet still deadly.
My confession of attraction hangs in the air between us. Words I can't take back. His pupils widen so his pale, arctic irises become mere rings around black pools. I should recoil from his predatory focus, but I stay frozen, transfixed in the dangerous current connecting us, like prey awaiting the strike.
Then suddenly, he releases me, severing our connection with such force that I nearly stumble backward. He turns away with a sharp, decisive movement that leaves me gasping as if surfacing from deep water. The spell shatters, and I'm left dizzy, unmoored.
His massive tail makes a soft rasping sound against stone as he slithers toward a barely visible fissure cutting through the far wall, like a jagged wound, each scale scraping the rock, a physical manifestation of his retreat from whatever just passed between us.
"This tunnel is not on any map I have ever seen," he says, his voice rougher than before. "It was my discovery. I never told anyone that I found it."
"Where does it lead?" I ask, studying the narrow opening with guarded hope.
"Up." He gestures with the heartglass, illuminating the steep incline beyond the fissure. "Most of the tunnels are ruined now, collapsed during the Sundering when your people's weapon brought down sections of the mountain. But not this one. This path to the surface still remains."
Lurok turns sideways to slip through the fissure, broad shoulders scraping stone. He flinches without a sound, healing wounds, protesting the tight squeeze. Jaw clenched, pride refusing to yield to pain, he emerges and extends a clawed hand. I hesitate, then take it, surprised by the warmth of his scales and how easily his massive hand engulfs mine as he guides me through the gap.
The passage slopes sharply upward, forcing me to dig my fingertips into tiny crevices for balance. My shoes slip on the floor, worn glass-smooth by what must have been ancient floodwaters.
"This path leads to an exit on the northern face of the mountains," he explains as we climb, voice echoing against stone.
"And then?" I ask between increasingly labored breaths, my lungs burning as the incline steepens. I refuse to fall behind, though my legs strain to match his powerful, serpentine movements.
"Then we travel eastward around the base of the mountain through the Ashlands to reach the obsidian gate on the south side." Lurok's voice drops to a rumble that makes the air vibrate against my skin. "It will take us several hours of travel to reach the gate.”
"The Ashlands," I whisper, my father's warnings echoing in my mind. "My father spoke of them. Said they're uninhabitable, poisoned by the Great Burning."
"Is that what humans call the use of the incendiary device that laid waste to our territory?" Lurok's pupils narrow to slits, his massive body coiling tighter.
"Yes."
"YourGreat Burningdid more than kill our warriors," he says, each word sharp as a blade, the frills along his neck flaring. "It poisoned the land itself, turned forests to ash, and lakes to toxic sludge. Nothing grows there. Nothing lives."
I watch his jaw clench, muscles shifting beneath jagged scales, catching the heartglass light like polished armor. Tension ripples as he swallows bitter words.
I fall silent, weighing his words against what I know of the Ashlands. My throat tightens as I remember the maps in Father's study, vast regions marked with skulls.
"How much farther?" I ask, wincing as a jagged edge of stone catches my forearm, opening a fresh cut alongside the burns and bruises already marking my skin.
"We climb until we can no longer climb," Lurok answers cryptically, reaching down to steady me as I stumble on a loose piece of rock. "This passage was carved by water, not hands. It follows its own path through the heart of the mountain."
His touch lingers a moment longer than necessary before he releases me and climbs upward. I follow. The passage narrows; I am forced sideways, stone scraping my chest and back. Ahead, Lurok slips through each constriction with a fluid grace that defies his size. Claustrophobia claws at my throat. I swallow it down.
"The air is changing," Lurok observes after what feels like hours. "Can you taste it?"
I pause, drawing a deeper breath. He's right. The air carries a hint of something beyond stone dust and minerals, a subtle vitality that whispers of open spaces. Hope surges through me, giving strength to my trembling limbs.
"We're getting closer to the surface," I say, unable to keep the eagerness from my voice.
